DARPA Announces Next Generation Social Science Program; Abstracts Due March 31

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense has announced a new social science research effort – Next Generation Social Science (NGS2) – which seeks to “begin to assess the research opportunities provided by today’s web-connected world and advanced technologies.” NGS2 is looking to fund research that will enhance three core social science capabilities – predictive modeling and hypothesis generation, innovative experimental methods and platforms, and interpretation and reproducibility of research results. An initial focus of the program will be to “challenge researchers to develop and use new tools and methods to identify causal mechanisms of ‘collective identity’ formation—how a group of individuals becomes a unified whole, and how under certain circumstances that community breaks down into a chaotic mix of disconnected individuals.”